More Hispano’s musicians don’t just perform: they create. And not on paper, but on stage: right in front of the public — Improvisation and full of risk glosas, creativity, communication and virtuosity all make each one of their shows a unique spectacle.

Directed by Vicente Parrilla, More Hispano ensemble offers unique projects, in keeping with an extremely unusual concept within the field of Early Music performance: the fully improvised performance of all the pieces included in their programmes. Since 2005, they have focused exclusively on developing and recovering the art of improvisation, an essential tool that allows them to make fresh, surprising live performances loaded with a great communicative power. The incorporation of the art of improvisation adds a new dimension to live performance as a result of the direct communication it allows with the audience, and has always been warmly received by the public.

More Hispano’s debut album was entirely dedicated to 17th century Spanish composer Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde (Canzoni, Fantasie et Correnti, 1999). The 2010 album Yr a oydo (old Spanish for Going by ear) is devoted to improvisation in Renaissance and early baroque music, while their latest CD production (Glosas, 2011) is a very personal project which brings together original and unpublished material in the form of new embellishments on Renaissance music.

VICENTE PARRILLA

Vicente Parrilla studied the recorder at Seville’s conservatory with Guillermo Peñalver. At the age of 17, he moved to The Netherlands in order to further his studies, initially with Jeanette van Wingerden at the The Hague’s Koniklijk Conservatorium, and later with Walter van Hauwe at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, graduating in 2001. He completed his studies with Pedro Memelsdorff at Esmuc in Barcelona, besides attending a good number of courses with Aldo Abreu.

He began his concert career at a very early age, making his debut CD —a record entirely devoted to Spanish 17th century composer B. de Selma y Salaverde— at the age of 20. In addition to leading his quartet, More Hispano and a number of other projects, Parrilla has collaborated with a wide selection of groups and musicians with different backgrounds: jazz artists, flamenco artists and early music ensembles. He has performed in a number of festivals and concert halls in Spain, Ireland, England, Austria, The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Brazil & Mexico.

Since 2004, he has been regularly teaching Recorder, Ornamentation and Improvisation for Period Instruments at Seville’s Conservatorio Superior de Música.